


vita ante acta

by orphan_account



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-05-30 17:39:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6433984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since that day, he’s dreamed of several other lifetimes. All of them have been different words; one a city half-submerged, soft yellow lights reflected on a surface smooth as glass, another, a room with blinding white walls, filled with the hum of strange metallic machines. Every one of them, every last one, feels like guilt, comes with the taste of <i>sorrys</i> and <i>goodbyes</i>, and each one ends with the same hollowness in his chest, a keen sense of loss and longing, and the same three letters on his lips.</p>
            </blockquote>





	vita ante acta

**Author's Note:**

> i love reincarnation aus and i realized that i hadn't read a yakulev one, so here we are!  
> (since it is a reincarnation au, there will be death, but mostly implied and nothing too violent.)
> 
> i kind of really don't like this, but i also spent way too much time on it to not publish it. unbeta'd. //throws into old pseud folder
> 
> edit: shoutout to steph ([tanaka--saeko](http://tanaka--saeko.tumblr.com)/[mochidoodle](http://mochidoodle.tumblr.com)) for this wonderful [fanart](http://mochidoodle.tumblr.com/post/144887590992/) for this work! i still can't believe you drew something for something i wrote udabes

_she had galaxies behind her eyes, and meteor showers in the pit of her belly, so when she told me she loved me, I knew the universe did too.  
_ **unknown**

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**January, 1333 – Kamakura Shogunate, Japan**

“I’m off,” Yaku says, opening the flap of his tent to a dark, predawn chill. The barest of glows peeks over the horizon, but all around him, the camp is in a frenzy. People are shouting and saddling up mounts, voices rising above the familiar clank of metal. The air buzzes with adrenaline and nerves. Yaku breathes in a lungful of cold, electric energy and looks toward the east. _Nothing yet._

Inside the tent, Yaku’s words are met with silence. He sighs, tightening his armor around his waist.

“You know how important today is, Lev. If we don’t win this battle, it’s over.”

The wind begins to blow, sending dust skittering across the ground. The rising sun, higher now, bleeds red into the sky, and when the barest of silhouettes skims the surface of the horizon, growing larger by the second, Yaku swallows, flexing his fingers in his gloves experimentally. The feel of the leather, soft and well-worn on his skin, calms the tingling of his nerves. _It’s just another battle_ , he tells himself, chanting it like a mantra.

“Don’t go.” Lev whispers, words coming rushed and desperate and trembling, and Yaku turns around in surprise. He peers into the tent and finds his companion seated against its walls, knees drawn up to his chest, eyes rapidly blinking away tears. In the darkness, he looks very small, and Yaku wants nothing more than to wrap him in his arms.

He doesn’t, though. “I promise I’ll return,” he replies, the words ringing hollow even in his own ears. He is well aware that promises are a poor substitution for a presence, a body, a touch, but it is all he can spare. He hopes it is enough.

Lev sniffs. Yaku remains where he is, halfway through the entrance of the tent, neither inside nor outside, and waits, expectant.  

“Please come home,” Lev finally concedes, softly, reluctantly. Yaku pretends not to notice the way his voice breaks, and steps out.

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**September, 1847 – London, England**

Yaku pulls his newsboy cap lower over his face as he crosses the paved main street, careful not to attract attention. Amidst the hustle and bustle of London, it isn’t very difficult, and he slips down an abandoned alley next to the butcher shop, situating himself on a stack of abandoned barrels, giving each and every passerby the once-over with a practiced eye. He’s been doing this for years, a child of the streets and partners in crime with two others from his orphanage. They’re the ones who helped him establish his territory here around the butcher shop, going so far as to spread rumors of a streetlord with a real tough streak and the scars to prove it: _the infamous “Old Cat,”_ they’d chortled, and Yaku had hit them both, relieving them of all the money in their pockets in the process. He hates the nickname, but it’s better than using his real one, so he accepts it grudgingly.

A door across the street swings open, interrupting his reminisces, and a pretty lady dressed in a fashionable, expensive dress steps out, gloved hands clutching her purse delicately. Yaku grins and crouches, ready to move. He can practically taste the fish on his tongue; a rare, expensive treat, but hardly a burden on this woman who can afford so much finery.

Before he can make his way out of the alley, however, a man exits the shop behind her, and Yaku sighs, melting back into the shadows. He knows better than to try and pickpocket from a lady with an escort, no matter how hungry he is. From where he’s sitting, Yaku can barely make out the man’s features, but he looks oddly familiar, even though Yaku knows he’s never met anyone with silver hair in his life. He shakes off the strange tightness in his chest and heads over to the tavern instead, unsettled.

Luck, while not quite on his side, has taken pity on him today, and hands him a meal in the form of a drunkard passed out on the floor, enough pennies in his pockets to purchase a cup of stew. He sleeps soon after, returning to the alley outside the butcher’s shop.

Yaku rarely dreams, but tonight he finds himself in an unfamiliar place, the dark interior of a tent that smells like sweat and leather and the sharp tang of metal. _Please come home_ , someone says, but when he turns around to see who it is, the tent disappears in a swirl of white, and the sky around him begins to drip red, painted in blood. With a start, Yaku jolts awake, a sheen of sweat on his brow and a keen sense of loss still resounding through his chest.

“Lev,” he whispers, testing the name on his tongue. It tastes like _goodbye_.

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**February, 1980 – Miyagi, Japan**

Yaku slumps down on the couch in the break room of the oncology ward of Miyagi General Hospital, glaring at the broken coffee machine. He feels the familiar pounding begin behind his ears, an unfortunate side effect of too many late nights in medical school with nothing but his books and a double shot espresso (or two) to keep him company.

Unfortunately, the machine remains stubbornly silent, taunting him with its blinking red light, the one that normally means “ready” but right now is doing what Yaku supposes is the technological equivalent of flipping the bird.” He rubs his eyes with a groan and turns his attention to the files in front of him with a huff, readying for the next half of his shift. There is only one new responsibility in addition to the usual rounds this morning: one Mr. Haiba Lev, twenty-two years of age, re-admitted for leukemia after years of remission.

Yaku’s eyes brush over the number _22_ again, so close to his own _25_ , and feels the usual heaviness settle in his chest. With the influx of patients recently, he hasn’t gone back to his apartment in days, and although it is a cheap, dusty affair, rented with the full knowledge that he would be at the hospital all day and night more often than not, it is still his home.

But he gets to choose. The patients don’t, and he does not envy them. Making the ninth floor of Miyagi General Hospital _home_ means finding a sense of peace and belonging in hallways and rooms filled with a constant, lingering _memento mori_. It’s more than anyone can take for long, let alone people who are already physically compromised. He’s seen it play out countless times – the first days are always the brightest, with swarms of visitors and bright bouquets and cards filling the room. A few months later, the same well-wishers are met with closed doors and shuttered blinds, and when Yaku enters the room for rounds, silence hangs heavy in the air, rough against his skin.

 _22_ , he reads again. _So young._ Yaku hopes this Haiba Lev meets a better fate.

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**July, 2010 – Tokyo, Japan**

“I keep telling him that freshmen are supposed to be _early_ ,” Yaku grumbles, squeezing a ball between his hands. Around him, members of the Nekoma volleyball team scurry around the gym, setting up for practice. “But no, he has to arrive five minutes late _every_ single practice. If he didn’t have so much potential, I’d have told Kuroo to kick him out ages ago.”

Kenma looks at him curiously.

“Yes, Kenma?” Yaku asks pointedly, just the slightest bit uncomfortable under Kenma’s inscrutable gaze.

Kenma shrugs and returns to tying his shoes. “Nothing, Yaku-san. You just seem kind of angry today.”

Yaku huffs and rolls his eyes, giving the ball another squeeze. “Of course I’m angry. He’s a good kid, and he’s got the talent, but sometimes, he just does the stupidest stuff. He’s always late to practice, and he sleeps at three in the morning even though he’s got exams the next day and – I swear, you won’t believe what he did yesterday. He tried to receive a ball with his face during receive practice. He _wanted_ it to hit his face. He said he was trying to be prepared for all circumstances. I told him that for someone who claims to be the ace, he seems quite eager to get himself taken out of the game.” Yaku stops to take a deep breath. A vein throbs in his neck. “God! You have no idea what I would give to know what’s going on in that giant head of his.”

Kenma’s lips quirk up just a bit at the end. Yaku wonders if it might count as a smirk, but then decides against it. Kenma smirking falls under his list of Very Dangerous Things, in between Kuroo yelling “Yaku! I’ve got an idea!” and Yamamoto seeing a cute girl, and he really doesn’t have time right now to deal with a Very Dangerous Thing.

“Finished, Yaku-san?” Kenma asks before walking away without waiting for a reply, and Yaku feels the strangest urge to smack him on the head.

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**April, 1980 – Miyagi, Japan**

“Yaku-san!”

Yaku turns around and sighs at the sight of the giant half-Russian bounding down the hallway. “Yes, Lev?”

“Will you come and teach me about the stars again tonight, Yaku-san?” Lev asks with a tilt of his head. His eyes shine with childish exuberance, excitement practically radiating out of every inch of skin, and Yaku’s breath catches in his throat. _Cute_ , he thinks, before mentally slapping himself for ever thinking Haiba Lev, a two-meter half-Russian terror, could be cute. Excitable, maybe, bordering on irritating. Disrespectful, too, with a shocking lack of self-awareness. Yes, those are much better words, Yaku decides.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in treatment right now?” Yaku replies, hoping to avoid getting himself roped into any kind of commitment. He looks behind Lev, looking for the poor nurse who got stuck with babysitting the giant man-child for the next eight hours.

Lev gives a sheepish chuckle and scratches his head. “Well, about that…”

“Haiba Lev!” Yaku hears Yamamoto yelling down the corridor. “Haiba Lev, where are you?”

Lev jolts back and then shrinks just as fast under Yaku’s withering stare. “Okay, okay, I’ll go back. Yamamoto-san is really scary though! He’s so loud! You can be kind of scary too but at least you’re short.”

Yaku slaps him with a grumble, pushing him down the hallway in the direction of Yamamoto’s increasingly angry shouting. Next to him, Kuroo, the other resident on duty, cackles. “Do you remember the first night he came? You paged me at 6 in the morning screaming bloody murder. I thought old man Kibino was having one of his psychotic episodes again.”

“No, I was the one having a psychotic episode,” Yaku mutters under his breath, watching with just the tiniest bit of satisfaction as Yamamoto rounds the corner and drags an unwilling Lev away toward the treatment room. Okay, maybe a lot of satisfaction.

Kuroo snorts. “All he did was call you _short_ , Yaku. You need to do something about that temper of yours.”

“He thought I was a _kid_ that got lost!” Yaku fumes. “Can you believe it? I’m 165 centimeters, Kuroo, I’m only a _little bit_ below average _,_ and besides, _I’m_ not the one who hits my head on the doorframe five times a day because I’m too busy staring at one of the nurses-”

“That was _once_!” Kuroo yelps, swatting at him. “Shut your mouth or I’ll tell Lev your cell phone number.”

Yaku narrows his eyes. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would,” Kuroo replies with a smug grin. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and waves it in front of Yaku’s face for good measure. “I can imagine it now. Your shift ends. You walk into the break room. You check your cell phone. Somehow a certain Haiba Lev has managed to call you twenty times, leave you fifteen voicemails, send you five hundred messages, and on top of it all, insult your height forty times. You spontaneously combust. I steal your video game collection. It would be the best day of my life.”

Yaku opens his mouth to retaliate, but Kuroo holds up his index finger. Somehow his grin manages to get wider. “But you’d read all of the messages. Every single one, wouldn’t you, Yaku?”

(Over the next hour, a grand total of fifteen different people ask Kuroo if the hand-shaped mark on his cheek is from an angry girlfriend.)

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**January, 1333 – Kamakura Shogunate, Japan**

“Yaku, watch out!” Kuroo shouts, voice barely carrying over the clashes of swords and shields.

Yaku twists around in midair, sword raised, ready to fend off an incoming attacker, but there is no one there, only the point of an arrow making its way directly toward his heart. Time slows to a crawl, the seconds passing by excruciatingly slowly.

To his left, Kuroo’s face remains frozen still, eyes and mouth wide with shock, hand stretched out as if to push him out of the way.

Behind him, the sun is setting, dark and leering, bleeding red into the sky. Below, the ground is soaked with the dead. (He can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.)

 _Move,_ Yaku screams at himself, desperate enough to beg, but he only continues to turn within the arrow’s path, trapped by momentum and inertia.

It catches him in his chest in a flash of blinding pain, and he tumbles from his horse to the cold ground below. Someone screams, sounding very far away.

Yaku tastes iron and blood on his tongue. His heart pounds loudly in his ear, drowning out the sounds of war.

He thinks of green eyes filled with tears, the softness of silver hair underneath his fingertips, and coughs once, pain spasming in his chest. He has a few minutes left to live at most, judging by the rate of his bleeding, and he wonders what he should have done differently. _Should_. The word leaves a strange bitterness in his mouth, and he thinks of stolen glances, hands barely brushing, one small, short sentence that lodged in his throat many moons ago, refusing to leave. He chokes it down.

As his vision begins to blur, he sees Lev sitting in the same place he was that morning against the walls of the tent, head between his knees, anxiety apparent in the hunch of his shoulders and the smallness of his back. Yaku cannot see the tears, but he knows they’re there. He caused them.

 _Sorry,_ he whispers, no one to hear him except the wind.

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**June, 1980 – Miyagi, Japan**

Yaku finds himself on the hospital rooftop at one in the morning for the twentieth time in the last month, surrounded by boxes of grocery store bento. Next to him, Lev hums happily, stuffing his face with seaweed salad and inarizushi. The latter is his favorite food, but the hospital doesn’t serve it, and while Yaku has little enough to spend on food for himself, it’s not like he dislikes inarizushi either.

 _Are you sure that’s the reason_? Kuroo’s voice asks him, and Yaku swats at it, annoyed, pushing the words back deep into the recesses of his mind. It’s not entirely what Kuroo thinks it is, even if he is honest with himself. He didn’t realize it back then, but what he had felt that first time he ever read Lev’s name, in that break room with the broken coffee machine, before they had ever met for the first time – it was guilt. He wanted to say _sorry_ for something, but even now, he’s not sure what it is.  

“Did you know that there’s going to be a meteor shower next month?” Yaku asks, breaking the silence. They’ve long since exhausted the little astronomy knowledge he had, but Lev still keeps dragging up to the rooftop for some reason.

“Really?” Lev asks him, eyes shining, excitable as ever. Some rice flies out of his mouth, and Yaku stifles a laugh. He reaches for a napkin and moves to wipe the corner of Lev’s mouth, but Lev grabs his hand and Yaku freezes for a moment, all too aware of warm fingers against his skin. He makes the mistake of looking at Lev’s face, and while he’s always known Lev’s eyes were a beautiful, striking green, at this moment, they have hidden depth, tinted slightly blue like the sea. Yaku swallows.

 _Oh boy, are you in deep_ , Kuroo’s voice returns, and Yaku can practically see the knowing smirk on his face. “Um,” he says, before mentally slapping himself for being so stupid. _Smooth, Yaku._

Lev’s mouth curves into an “o”, and he drops his hand and looks away. Yaku busies himself with cleaning up the plastic boxes around him, glad that the roof is dark enough to hide the blush that must be on his cheeks right now.

“It’s getting late, Lev,” he says, thankful his voice is steady. “We should go back.”

For once, Lev does not protest, and the two of them head back down to Lev’s room.

“Can we see the meteor shower together?” Lev blurts out as soon as he’s back in his bed, resting under the covers.

“If you’re good,” Yaku grumbles, but smiles to show Lev that what he really means is _of course_. “Now get some rest, will you?”

Lev nods, uncharacteristically silent. Yaku sees that his cheeks are red, and makes a note on his chart to check him for a fever later.

He heads down the hallway to check on the other patients, when Dr. Nekomata stops him suddenly, clipboard in hand. “Yaku, you’re quite close with Lev, correct?”

“I guess, kind of,” Yaku replies, a little wary. Dr. Nekomata has never asked him anything of the like before, though, he’s also never quite befriended a patient before. “Why do you ask?”

Dr. Nekomata sighs. He rubs the back of his head, refusing to make eye contact. “We’ve been unable to find a donor for Lev’s bone marrow transfusion. I thought I should let you know.”

Yaku’s heart drops into his stomach, and he feels queasy. A strange sense of defeat settles on his shoulders. “Too late,” it says, and Yaku wants to scream at it: “Too late for what?”

 _Don’t ask_ , he warns himself, but the words come out of his mouth anyway. “How long?” The question hangs in the air for what seems like an eternity, and Yaku wants nothing more than to snatch it back and pretend he never asked and live in ignorance for just a while longer. Some vengeful deity has other ideas for him.

“One month.”

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**September, 2010 – Tokyo, Japan**

“I don’t want to do any more receives,” Lev groans, sprawled out on the floor of Nekoma’s gym. Yaku thinks that it should be quite impossible for his limbs to bend the way they do, but somehow, Lev looks quite normal doing it; at least, as normal as a half-dead two-meter-tall half-Russian can look.

Yaku looks up at the clock. Kuroo told him to close the gym at 6, and it’s only 5:30pm.

“Get up, you giant baby,” Yaku barks. “I know you like spiking more, but if no one receives the ball, you’ll never get to spike.”

Lev groans again, louder this time.

“Lev, don’t you want to go to Nationals?” Yaku finally asks with a sigh, crossing his arms. Lev’s head snaps up impossibly fast.

“Of course I want to go to Nationals with you, Yaku-san!” he replies excitedly, and Yaku feels redness creeping up his neck at the genuine and unabashed emotion in Lev’s words.

 “Then you have to practice your receives, you idiot!” he says, pulling up on Lev’s arm, hoping his cheeks aren’t too pink. He struggles, and Lev laughs, but eventually they get through the rest of Lev’s receive practice without major incident (save a few hits in the face, accidental this time, at least) and lock up at 6pm on the dot.

“Um, Yaku-san,” Lev says as they walk away from the gym, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. Yaku looks up at him quizzically, and notices that Lev is hiding his hands behind his back.

“Yes, Lev?” he asks, furrowing his brow.

“I, uh,” Lev starts, chewing on his lower lip. Yaku can feel his nervousness, and it sets him on edge.

“Spit it out,” he demands.

“I got this for you,” Lev manages after a little bit of stuttering, bringing his hands out from behind his back. Resting in his outstretched palms is a phone charm shaped like a tabby cat. It’s really quite cute, but Yaku’s not exactly the kind of boy to tote around a cat charm on his cell phone. That’s something his sister would do. Or, now that he thinks about it, Kuroo as well, if only because it would remind him of Kenma.

“Why?” he asks, staring back at Lev. He makes no motion to take it.

“I just wanted to say thank you,” Lev grins sheepishly. “Please accept it, Yaku-san.”

Yaku can’t very well deny him after that statement, so he gives a nod of thanks and reaches for the charm while pulling out his phone with his other hand. He attaches it smoothly and displays it for Lev, who grins.

Lev pulls out his own phone, and it too bears a cat charm. “A Russian blue!” he proudly announces.

The magnitude of what Yaku has just done hits him right in the face, and he turns bright red “Y-you got matching keychains?” he asks, hiding his face behind his palms. He can feel his cheeks positively _flaming_ underneath them. _This kid is going to be the death of me_ , he thinks.

When Lev nods back happily, he realizes he doesn’t really mind.

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**July, 1980 – Miyagi, Japan**

Yaku sits at the bedside and watches Lev’s chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm, face calm and peaceful in rest. He feels the hollowness of the silence press into him, remembers scattered fragments from the patient report for the day. _Say your goodbyes_ , it reads, and Yaku tries not to be bitter. The words are an act of mercy on Dr. Nekomata’s part, he knows, but all he can think of is that _goodbye_ is not a magic spell; it cannot heal his heart and make him forget. On the spectrum of loss and words left unsaid, _goodbye_ spans less than a centimeter, barely the breadth of nails bitten ragged, but still, it spans, and Yaku never quite built a bridge across it.

 _Home isn’t always a place_! Lev had told him months ago, when Yaku asked him how he managed to stay so boisterous and energetic. Yaku had not understood him then, but now, staring at the profile of the only person who had ever made the hospital feel like _home_ to him, he thinks he knows what Lev meant.

He seals his lips around a mouthful of _goodbyes_ and _I love you’s_ and _forevers_ and retreats from the room without a second glance, leaving behind the steady hum of machinery and the heavy, accusing weight of silence.

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**December, 2320 – NeoSeoul, Unified Republic of Korea**

“Professor Sugawara?” Yaku asks tentatively as he approaches the figure sitting on the ledge outside his academy classroom.

Sugawara turns around and flashes him a smile of recognition. “Ah, hello, Yaku.”

Yaku takes a seat next to Sugawara on the windowsill, swinging his legs back and forth as he gazes over the glittering lights of NeoSeoul and smooth, flat surface of the canals, black and smooth as glass. They sit together in silence, watching the lights of the night market stalls slowly blink on and listening to the shouts of vendors and the low bass notes of club music, feeling the city come alive for the night.

“I had a question about the soulmates lecture today,” Yaku finally blurts out, the words tumbling over his tongue like a sigh of relief.

Sugawara smiles at him again. “Every year, one student comes to ask me about it, and several others send me messages. You’re not alone in your curiosity, Yaku.”

Yaku shakes his head mutely. He stares out at the city, feels its buzzing, frantic energy in his bones, strange, electric, not wholly unwelcome. Even so, the words catch in a hollow somewhere between his stomach and his throat. He swallows.

“Would you like me to show you mine?” Sugawara asks after several minutes of silence. He pulls up his left sleeve and displays his wrist for Yaku. _Are you – are you an angel?_ it reads, and Yaku looks at Sugawara with arched eyebrows, expectant.

“My soulmate and I share our first words to each other on our wrists,” Sugawara explains. A light blush dusts his cheeks. “It’s a fairly common version of the connection, one of the ones I mentioned in lecture today.”

Yaku gazes over the words. The hollowness in his chest widens.

“I’m not really quite sure how to explain this,” he begins. He looks back at the city, drawing strength from the familiarity of its faded yellow lights and bright neon signs. “It’s not that I don’t have a soulmate. I can feel him. That he’s out there. But I also feel this strange emptiness inside. That he’s not _here_.”

He looks back at Sugawara, who is staring at him with eyes unreadable, and gives a strange, breathy laugh. “I’m sorry, Professor. I don’t really know what I’m talking about. I’ll go back to my room now, get some work done.”

“No, no,” Sugawara replies almost urgently. “I’ve heard of it before. Daichi – my soulmate – he’s a researcher at the Institute, actually. One of the top-security teams has been working on the exact phenomenon you’re describing. I don’t know what it is, exactly; Daichi doesn’t have the clearance for that, but he knows the head researcher, Dr. Oikawa. The project’s named after some Latin phrase he likes, something like asters and aspens- _ad astra_ -“

“Ad astra per aspera,” Yaku whispers. His heart jumps. _Through hardships to the stars._

Sugawara looks at him in surprise. “Yes, that sounds right! I didn’t know you were in Latin, Yaku.”

Yaku shakes his head. “I’m not.” It is the truth. Yaku has never read a word of Latin in his life, but when he hears those words – _ad astra_ – he feels the warmth of another’s touch, sees a night filled with a million falling stars. He thinks of people he’s never met, sights he’s never seen, words he’s never read or spoken. The last part comes with a touch of sadness, the taste of regret and the lingering bitterness of _should_ s and _almost_ s. Something settles inside his chest, nestles inside its hollow like it belongs, and Yaku thinks, just a little wistfully, that it feels like home.

“Thank you, Professor,” Yaku says with a smile as he stands and walks back along the ledge to the window of his classroom. “I think I know what my connection is now.”

Sugawara doesn’t say a word, but Yaku replies anyway. “ _Vita ante acta_ , Professor. A life done before.”

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**October, 1336 – Ashikaga Shogunate, Japan**

_“Lev-san, do you live alone?”_

_Lev nods, just barely. He gazes out the window of the room, at the wisteria tree planted just outside the outer courtyard. It waves gently in the breeze._

_“Then why do you have two beds?”_

_A gust of wind blows, and petals fall to the ground in a flurry of pinks and purples, some swept away completely, never to be seen again._

_“I’m waiting for someone to come back home.”_

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**February, 2011 – Tokyo, Japan**

Lev rushes over to Yaku as soon as the time-out is called, an expression of concern on his face.

“I’m sorry, Yaku-san!” he says, giving Yaku a deep bow, head bobbing up and down apologetically.

“For what, Lev?” Yaku asks him, wincing as the athletic trainer jerks the gauze around his ankle. “I injured myself receiving the ball. You made a good spike off of it. There’s no need to feel sorry for me.”

Lev straightens, but his mouth is still set in a pout. His eyes look worried. “But now you can’t play.”

Thinking of long game yet ahead, Yaku forces himself to smile, hoping that it looks reassuring. The quality of Lev’s plays depended heavily on his emotions, and for him to be regretful all game over this incident would spell bad news for Nekoma. _Act normal, Yaku._ “Lev, there’s no need to be considerate. First, it’s weird, coming from you, and second, you need to focus on the game right now. Didn’t you say we were going to go to nationals together?”

Lev immediately perks up, regaining his usual composure. His eyes glint with an almost feral excitement, at least, a fierce desire to win. Yaku gives a mental sigh of relief. “Of course, Yaku-san!” Lev replies with a grin. “We’re going to win this and go to nationals! For you!”

At the last line, Yaku feels his face turn a furious pink. He looks away, heart beating erratically.

“Y-yeah. Go get ‘em, Lev.”

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**November, 1847 – London, England**

Yaku wanders mindlessly through the rough paved roads of the city of London. The unsettled feeling that overcame him when he first met the silver-haired aristocrat returned early that morning, and he’d left his territory to Kuroo for the day, freeing himself up to do whatever he liked. He finds himself at the train station, a towering, vaulting structure that always manages to make him feel very, very small, and understands immediately why he’s there when he spots the man he saw coming out of the shop the other day. He is sitting on one of the benches next to a platform. Yaku wonders who he is waiting for.

Since that day, he’s dreamed of several other lifetimes. All of them have been different words; one a city half-submerged, soft yellow lights reflected on a surface smooth as glass, another, a room with blinding white walls, filled with the hum of strange metallic machines. Every one of them, every last one, feels like guilt, comes with the taste of _sorry_ s and _goodbye_ s, and each one ends with the same hollowness in his chest, a keen sense of loss and longing, and the same three letters on his lips.

 _Is this a world in which you love me?_ he wonders, and on the platform in front of him, a woman walks off the arriving train, the same elegant lady he’s seen before. The man jumps up from his seat and embraces her with a wide hug and an easy, boisterous laugh, full of joy and achinglyfamiliar. The sound makes Yaku’s heart twist uncomfortably, and he shivers, feeling a sudden conspicuous absence of warmth around his shoulders. He turns away, throat tightening, scarcely able to breathe.

 _No,_ he hears, in a voice not his own, but the whisper of summer days and winter nights, the moon and the stars and everything in the cosmos in between. _Not this one._

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**July, 1980 – Miyagi, Japan**

Yaku climbs up the steps to the rooftop at 1 in the morning with an old camera and a box of grocery store bento. He sits down in the usual place and sets up the video recording as the sky slowly brightens, lit up by the glow of a million falling stars.

He opens the box of inarizushi and takes a bite. Its familiar sweetness washes over his tongue, almost comforting, but it doesn’t taste quite the same without a loud, boisterous voice next to him, its owner glowing beneath the sky as if he were made of stardust.

Yaku sets the bento aside and watches as the Perseids continue to fall. It is a beautiful sight, one worth sharing. Each meteor streaks across the sky in a bright flash, leaving only a faint trail of dust, a memory, behind. Yaku watches each one slowly fade away, and the guilt inside his chest slowly expands until it is excruciating. _Can we watch the meteor shower together?_ someone says, and he curls up against the railing, knees tucked into his chest, head buried in his knees. He can taste salt on his lips.

Above him, tears streak across the sky, and Yaku takes comfort knowing that the universe misses Lev too.

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**March, 2011 – Tokyo, Japan**

When Lev’s spike hits the other side of the court, sealing a 28-26 clean sweep victory against Nohebi, Yaku leaps up to his feet, ignoring the sharp stab of pain running up his leg. He feels like he’s holding the whole world in his hands when he stands there on that court, a current of pride and joy running through his fingertips. He goes up to each and every player on the Nekoma team with a wide grin on his face, both hands raised for high fives.

“Now you don’t have to kick our asses,” Kuroo says with a lopsided grin. Kai smiles next to him, and Yaku gives them both fist-bumps. _To dominate nationals!_ , he hears in his head, three voices merged as one, and they nod in unison before breaking out in disbelieving laughter.

Shibayama is next, and Yaku gives him an affectionate rub of the head. “You did well,” he smiles. “Being Nekoma’s libero is the highest honor, and you’ve proved yourself more than worthy.” Shibayama barely manages to sputter out a _thank you_ , and Yaku just laughs, light and giddy and dizzy all at once.

Lev stands off near the edge of the court, looking strangely nervous as Yaku limps toward him with the widest grin of all. Lev raises his hands for a high five but Yaku pulls him straight into a hug, breathing out _sorry, thank you, I love you_.

Lev stiffens for a moment before hugging him back, and Yaku feels whole for the first time in his life – in lifetimes. The bright lights of the stadium shine above them like stars, and in Lev’s arms, Yaku feels like he’s finally _home_.

“Welcome back,” Lev whispers. Yaku pretends not to notice the way his voice breaks, and hugs him harder. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> concrit always welcome! i will love you forever.
> 
> neoseoul is based on that one timeline in cloud atlas, which is a movie / book i highly recommend.


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